


Behind Our Lullabies

by alltoowell



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Canon What Canon, F/F, sequel to earlier work
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-05
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-05 03:30:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5359472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alltoowell/pseuds/alltoowell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sequel to 'I Could Love You If You Let me.' </p>
<p>After surviving both Hannibal and Mason, Alana and Margot have spent the last six years building a new life together in Chicago. Now safe, happy and successful, they finally have everything they ever wanted -- but then Hannibal escapes, and they are dragged back into the life they thought they had left behind. </p>
<p>*In Progress.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. a masterpiece from broken things

**Author's Note:**

> Written at the oh-so patient request of tumblr user lieutenant--scooter and at the encouragement of so many of you lovely readers. 
> 
> Reminder: this does not follow on from the events of s3. It is a sequel to my earlier Alana/Margot fic. Anyone who knows me and my writing already knows to expect this to be quite different from canon -- no marrow in the blood and no babies inside pigs. I hope you can enjoy it as an alternative. 
> 
> Special thanks to my wonderful beta Anna, without whom I might never have worked up the courage to post this.

The call came during bathtime, while Esme was screaming bloody murder, and Margot was sniggering, and Alana was counting back from ten to keep from drowning them both. Having to answer her ringing cellphone came as a welcome reprieve, and one that forced Margot to shelf her amusement and take over the dreaded task of washing the shampoo out of their toddler’s hair. 

“Enjoy,” Alana said, easing herself up the floor while Margot shot her a dark look and Esme continued to shriek. “I have to take this.” 

The caller’s ID told her it was Jack Crawford, and it would be a lie to say that it did not come as a surprise. Contact had dwindled as the years passed: since _The Tooth Fairy_ case and its fallout three years ago, Alana could count the amount of times she had spoken to Jack on the phone on one hand. They have exchanged emails occasionally, although they were kept professional and purposeful and oddly formal, in a way Alana had once thought they would never be again. 

Now, her first instinct was to roll her eyes, although she didn’t. She wondered, a little bitterly, what Jack could want from her, what he needed _this time_. She crossed the landing to the privacy of the spare room and then took a long deep breath, waiting until the very last ring before she answered. 

“Hello?” 

“It’s me,” he said, breathless and gruff and barely audible over the screech of sirens: the icy chip on her shoulder melted at the sound of his voice. Something was wrong, and he was in the thick of it; and in that moment what had come before did not matter, was forgotten. “Listen, I really can’t talk right now, but I wanted you to hear it from me and not some damn news anchor.” 

“What is it?” Her thoughts were of Will. After Dolarhyde and his subsequent divorce from Molly, they’d tried to keep an eye on him, to check in regularly to make sure he was doing okay, but he went out of his way to lose touch with them. Alana had long forgotten whose turn it was to track him down. “ _Jack_?” 

“He got away, Alana.” In the background, she heard a woman say something, a voice she didn’t recognize. Jack barked an order, but Alana couldn’t make it out around the ringing of those three words in her ears: _he got away_. When he turned back to Alana, there was a familiar defeat in his voice that only she could really understand. “Hannibal,” he clarified. “He escaped.” 

She felt an ache in the back of her throat as her heart began to beat so violently that she heard her pulse in her ears, but she did not gasp, she did not cry out, nor did she give into the weakness in her knees and collapse into the chair by the window. Instead, she took a step back, so she could see through right down the hall to the open bathroom doorway, her eyes on Margot and the dripping child she had lifted from the bathtub to wrap in towels. 

“How did this happen?” Alana demanded, her voice quiet but her tone harsh. What she really wanted to ask was, _how could you let this happen?_

“He tricked and killed his way out of the custody, same as how he got out of everything.” As an afterthought, Jack let out a sigh. “He posed as a guard, so he could get out of there in an ambulance. Killed the paramedics, obviously, and now he’s gone.”

The tears that sprang to her eyes then had nothing to do with what Jack had just said and everything to do with Esme’s carefree giggles, the only sound she could make out from the end of the hallway, as Margot tickled their daughter’s sides under the guise of fixing her pajama top. “What about Will?” Alana asked, the whole time thinking -- selfishly, but without guilt -- that if Hannibal was headed for Will Graham, then it meant he was not on his way to her family. 

“His cell’s switched off.” Grimly, Jack added, “I thought he might be with you.” The woman he was with said something else Alana couldn’t make out. He swore. “I have to go. I’ll call you as soon as there’s any news.”

He hung up before she could fire questions his way that he was probably in no position to answer -- like, _what does Hannibal want?_ and _are any of us safe?_ and, the one she knew was the most unfair of all, _you’ll fix this, won’t you?_ She stared at the phone in her hand until she heard Margot call her. 

She looked up to see her wife by their daughter's bedroom door, Esme fastening a towel around her shoulders like a cape as she twisted around Margot’s legs, her hair leaving wet marks on her pajamas despite the aforementioned towel. The phone was ringing again, startling Alana and earning a quizzical look from Margot before she could even relay what Jack had told her. 

She fielded three more calls in total -- one from each of her brothers and another from an old friend in Baltimore. All sincere concern and innocent curiosity, and Alana was the epitome of reassuring. She spoke about Hannibal’s escape as if she had every idea what she was talking about, and her voice did not shake; she turned into the person they wanted her to be. Meanwhile, Margot took the dryer to Esme’s hair and tucked her in with a bedtime story. 

Alana joined them on the final page, when Esme’s eyes had already drifted shut. She slept with her fists clenched and her lips parted; she looked impossibly tiny buried under blankets and teddy bears. 

“What’s going on?” Margot whispered as Alana leaned over to press a kiss to their daughter’s forehead. 

Drawing back, Alana put her finger to her lips and motioned toward the hallway. Margot took the hint and followed her, pausing only to return _Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland_ to its rightful place on Esme’s shelf. She flipped the switch of the bedroom light as she passed but left the lamp to glow on the nightstand. 

“Hannibal escaped tonight,” Alana said, over her shoulder, as they started down the stairs. “No one knows where he’s gone.” 

“No one knows where Will Graham is either, I expect,” was Margot’s dry reply, before she disappeared into the kitchen while Alana stood in front of the television in the living room and flicked through the news channels on autopilot, without stopping long enough to read the bolded headlines. 

“You don’t seem surprised,” Alana murmured, and then Margot was in front of her, a bottle of her favourite beer in one hand, a glass of whisky in the other. 

“Neither do you,” she said, turning to the television when Alana took the beer. “What happened anyway?” 

“I don’t know.” Only when her thumb cramped did Alana stop at a channel. Beneath Hannibal’s mugshot, bold red writing flashed, reading, ‘ _Hannibal The Cannibal On The Loose,’_ and Alana stabbed the power button on the remote, shutting the television off completely. “I don’t _want_ to know,” she corrected, choking back more beer than she knew she should in one sip. 

“He won’t come here,” Margot said, a facade of nonchalance that Alana would usually fall for, but not tonight -- she knew Margot was no more certain about Hannibal’s plans than she was. “He has no reason to.”

The knock on the door was horribly timed, and, startled, Alana very nearly lost her beer to the sound. Margot’s eyes widened in the same moment hers did, and their drinks were forgotten on the fireplace in favour of leaning over the couch to peak behind the curtains. A police car in the driveway and two officers at the door only made the hair on Alana’s neck and arms stand up straighter; she felt goosebumps under her skin. 

Margot was one step behind her until they reached the door. Then, Alana stood back and let her take over. Margot waited for her to nod before opening it, just a crack, and narrowing her eyes. “Yes?” she probed, and Alana held her breath. 

“Ah, Dr. Bloom?” The older of the two held out his badge and offered a rueful smile in greeting. “We’re from Chicago P.D. The station was contacted on behalf of Agent Crawford of the FBI. He insisted we provide full police escorts and protection for your family and property until otherwise notified.” 

Margot looked at Alana, as if to check whether she had been expecting this. Alana was surprised, but more than that, she was _relieved_. She felt herself blush, embarrassed by the way they’d treated the officers so skeptically just moments before. _What had she been expecting?_

“Of course he did,” she said, letting out a shaky laugh as she met the officer’s eyes. “Thank you.” 

They were assured it was no problem at all, and then the officers bid goodnight, promising they would be parked in the driveway should they need anything. “We have four other men stationed around your property,” they added, and it was intended as a promise of safety, but it only really left Alana with more cause for concern. 

Not much later, before slipping into bed, Alana took off her dress while Margot perched on the window seat in their bedroom wearing only a silk kimono over her underwear. “Half these officers are barely out of high school. Hannibal could take them if he wanted to,” she said at one point, the mirth in her voice enough to have Alana rolling her eyes. 

“Margot,” she warned. When her wife turned to look at her, Alana fixed her with a glare. “That doesn’t reassure me.” 

“I didn’t realize you were so worried,” Margot replied dryly, but she tugged the curtains shut and crossed the room, climbing into bed beside Alana. “This time, whatever happened in Baltimore, it had nothing to do with you.” 

“ _This_ time,” Alana repeated. Her smile was forced as she banged her head lightly against the headboard. 

Margot’s legs brushed with hers under the covers. “Your self-depreciation is really killing the mood.” 

“My self-depreciation and not the possibility that there could very likely be a cannibal en route to kill us?” 

Margot’s smirk was infectious. “All the more reason for having really great sex before he gets here, I’d think.” 

Alana had to laugh at that. “You’re awful,” she said, and Margot edged closer to place a kiss on her bare shoulder while her hands snaked around Alana’s waist. 

“You don’t really believe he’d come after us, do you?” Margot’s voice was low but serious. Alana let out another breath and made herself shake her head. 

“No. Not really.” Margot was watching her carefully when Alana turned her head to face her. “He knows we’re in Chicago. I don’t think he has the address.”

The letters Hannibal wrote to them -- and there had been many, especially in the first few years following his incarceration -- were carefully inspected by the hospital staff before being forwarded to the Bureau for sending. As far as Alana was aware, even Frederick Chilton did not have her home address -- on the few occasions he had contacted her, it had been at her office at the University of Chicago. 

She knew all of this, but it did not stop her from thinking, desperately, somewhere in the quiet corners of her mind, that Hannibal had never to her knowledge killed a child; it did not stop her from needing to remind herself that Esme was safe, even if she and Margot weren’t. It might have been an unreasonable worry, but it was not her first as a mother, and it would not be her last.

“Well then,” Margot said, trailing kisses up her neck, hesitating only when it came to her jaw. “We have nothing to worry about.” 

Alana turned her head to meet Margot in a kiss, and her hands came up to frame Margot’s cheeks, pressing her back against the pillows. One of Margot’s legs slipped between hers, thigh brushing against her underwear deliberately. Her arms moved up Alana’s back, to her bra, which she unhooked easily and without hesitation, with nails too blunt to leave half-moon marks on Alana’s skin -- although she tried. Still, Alana felt Margot’s triumphant smile against her lips as they continued to kiss and Alana’s breasts, free, brushed against Margot’s own chest. Alana’s bra slipped awkwardly between them as the straps fell from her shoulders.

When Alana lifted her head for air, Margot laughed, breathless herself but with eyes that sparkled mischiefly. “You’re getting old,” she teased, and although Alana had intended to break away so she could properly de-clothe, she quickly reconsidered and launched her lips back to Margot’s, this time with the fever of a woman with something to prove. Margot ran her nails up and down Alana’s bare sides before stopping just short of tugging her panties, pointedly, until Alana took the hint and lifted herself from the straddle to allow Margot to pull her underwear further down her hips. 

Alana was about to shrug the duvet off when a blur of pale blue out of the corner of her eye had her pausing, and then a little voice called out, “Mama? Mommy?” and Alana’s brain registered a second too late that the sound was not a room away. Whatever moan Margot’s hands were generating quickly turned to a yelp as Alana sat up hastily in bed, yanking the duvet around herself, while Margot blinked from her to Esme and then broke into a fit of laughter. 

“Esme, you’re supposed to _knock_ ,” Alana said, her voice more strained than she intended, a mixture of panic and panting.

It was a relief to see the child rubbing her eyes with her fist, her favorite stuffed rabbit tucked under her other arm. She hadn’t been at the door long enough for her eyes to adjust to the light of their room in contrast to that of her bedside lamp -- not long enough then, Alana supposed, to be _too_ traumatized by anything she’d witnessed. 

“I _did_ ,” Esme argued, with a sullen but remarkably adorable pout -- something she’d perfected from watching Margot. A testament, in Alana’s opinion, to both how impressionable the toddler was and how fiercely she adored her ‘Mama.’ In a higher pitch, petulance forgotten in the face of distress, Esme said, “There’s a man at my window.” 

Margot stopped laughing for long enough to meet Alana’s eye and roll over. She was still wearing her kimono and only needed to adjust the top of her bra as she pushed herself from the bed. Alana silently thanked God she hadn’t torn Margot’s clothes off seconds before their daughter slipped into the room.

As she passed by Alana, Margot gave her a smirk, and Alana slapped her arm lightly and desperately, only evoking more amusement. Even as she laughed, Margot held her hand out to Esme who took it immediately. “Come on,” Margot commanded in an ‘ _I’ll take care of it_ ’ voice. “Show me.”

When they disappeared, Alana threw her bra over the back of the chair by their shared dressing table and pulled on an oversized jumper and Margot’s pajama shorts. A moment later, she leaned against Esme’s doorway and watched Margot balance the little girl on her hip as they looked out the window together. 

“He’s a police officer,” Margot explained. “A friend of a friend of Mommy’s.” 

“Why can’t he come _inside_?” Esme half-wailed, and Margot, sensing Alana had joined them, turned to her with a shrug, hitching Esme higher as she did so. Alana noticed how Esme’s leg brushed against the faded scar across Margot’s abdomen. She wondered how long it would be before their daughter would ask; she wondered even more what Margot would tell her. 

“He’s working, Ez.” This explanation of Margot’s was fit for a toddler, and Alana had no reason to believe the questions that would come in the future would be answered with any less tact. She brushed unruly strands of dark hair from her daughter’s face from where it rested against Margot’s shoulder, and thought that, despite being obviously adored, Esme would never understand how precious she was.

“But why is he working at _our_ house?” Their daughter pushed, blinking sleep away frantically. 

The response ‘ _to keep us safe,’_ while true, would only imply they were in danger. They had not long recovered from a spell of nightmares -- since then, they had been especially careful with what to say around her for fear of sparking it all off again. For a child who asked so many questions and was beginning to consider the answers she was given, it did not take much to plant the seeds of fear.

“Just because.” Alana felt something inside her tighten. She ran her fingers along Esme’s braid, still damp at the ends despite Margot having taken the hair dryer to it earlier. “Why don’t you sleep in our bed tonight?” 

The look Margot fixed her with was priceless, but Alana could not bring herself to laugh. Esme nodded, visibly more content, and when Margot let her down, she scrambled to her bed and set about choosing which stuffed toys to bring with her. 

“I hope Hannibal eats you first,” Margot muttered, and Alana did not have to fake the smile that came this time. If someone had told her six years ago that one day they would joke about something so grotesque, she would have been horrified.

The news of Hannibal’s escape had left her shaken, and with good reason given everything that had happened in the past. Yet that night, she did drift off to sleep, her hand rested on Margot’s hip, their sleeping child tucked between them. _Safe; safe; safe._


	2. you're still my dream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm (perhaps too optimistically) hoping to upload at least one chapter a week, but here's two to start.

The next morning it took a moment longer than usual for the sleep to clear from Alana’s mind and for her to recall the previous night’s news. For ninety glorious seconds it was just a regular Saturday morning, and her only worry was who would make breakfast. 

When she did remember, she instinctively looked to her left. Esme was still asleep, eyelids fluttering in sleep, with her head resting on Margot’s arm. Margot caught her eye, wincing as she tried to ease her arm out from under Esme’s head without waking her. 

“Morning,” Alana whispered, inching closer, her hand coming up to cradle their daughter’s head so Margot could slip away, knowing she had horses to see to. Esme did not take long to readjust, brushing her cheek against the pillow twice before settling back into a deep sleep. 

“Well, look at that.” Over her shoulder, Margot raised an eyebrow at Alana as she moved toward the wardrobe. “We survived the night.” 

In the light of day, it felt needlessly dramatic, self-absorbed even, to really be concerned about their safety. Alana had not spoken to or heard from Hannibal in over two years. Their last conversation (via letter, because she had resolved not to visit him for a very long time after what he had Dolarhyde do to Will) had been about a teething remedy of his mother's he’d suggested for Esme. Alana could not remember if she had replied to thank him, but she was sure that whatever the reason for his breakout of hospital was, it had nothing to do with wanting to come after her. 

Alana might not have been on Hannibal’s list of people to hunt, but she could not presume Jack and Will were quite so lucky, however. 

She watched Margot dress (slowly, because she knew Alana was watching, and she was sure to tease especially gleefully after Alana had invited Esme to sleep between them the previous night) and then, when Margot turned to the mirror, Alana picked up her cell phone from the bedside dresser. 

“I need to call Jack. Thank him for calling Chicago P.D.” She stifled a yawn and rubbed the last of the sleep from her eyes. “See if there’s any news.” 

“Do you _think_ there’ll be any news?” Margot turned, skeptical as always. “Hannibal’s smart. Wherever he is, I bet it’s a long way from Baltimore.” 

Margot left her with that thought and the insistence that it was her turn to make breakfast. Alana waited until she heard her going down the stairs to unlock her cell and pull up Jack’s number. She got out of bed as it rang, smiling faintly as Esme inched into the warm space she’d left behind. As she walked toward the window seat, she almost tripped over the stuffed rabbit Esme had brought into bed with her that had been tossed in the middle of the night. Jack answered just as she swore. 

“Morning,” he said evenly, but with gravel in his voice. Alana imagined she was on speaker, as Jack sat, unshaven, with his head in his hands at his desk, surrounded by half-empty coffee cups. 

She spared them both the hassle of idle pleasantries. “Did you sleep at _all_ last night, Jack?” 

“Hard to sleep when I know what the world’s waking up to.” He let out a groan. “They haven’t found him. And they won’t, probably.” She didn’t think she’d ever heard Jack so resigned, so hopeless. “This is all such a mess, Alana.” 

She hugged her knees to her chest as she settled by the window, watching two officers from Chicago P.D. laugh together in her driveway. She remembered why she called. 

“What can I do?” she asked softly. “What do you need?” 

There was a moment of silence, as if he were debating whether she was being sincere or not. When he did speak, his request was a tentative one: “You could call Molly for me -- see if she’s heard from Will. She’s screening my calls. Maybe she’ll talk to you.” 

Alana wasn’t surprised Jack was still getting the cold shoulder from Will’s ex. She didn’t imagine Molly would be any warmer with her, but she would try. Idly, she pulled at a loose thread on the pajama shorts she was wearing. “When was the last time you spoke to him?” 

“You know, Alana, I can’t even remember,” Jack said. Something in his voice made her heart ache. He did not just sound older; he sounded _old_. She wondered just how long the last three years had been for him. 

“I’ll talk to Molly,” she promised. “I’ll get back to you.” 

“I appreciate it.” There was the sound of shuffling, and for a second the line was broken, and then Jack’s voice was filling her ears, louder, clearer, with less of an echo. “I have to go. Need to catch Chilton before he skips the country -- you know how he is.” 

“Of course.” It didn’t surprised her that Frederick planned to flee -- he had exploited having Hannibal at his mercy for six years, after all. “Hey, Jack?” Alana bit her lip. “Thanks for the police protection.” 

“It’s just a precaution,” Jack said, deliberately attempting to sound flippant. “I don’t want you to panic.” 

“I’m not panicking.” Not today, anyway. Perhaps under the blanket of the night, when the armed officers outside were reduced to shadows again she would not feel quite so brave. “But I _am_ grateful.” 

“Alright, well, I’ll talk to you later.” 

“Be careful,” she said, and for a moment there was hesitation on the other end of the line, as if she had asked of him the one thing he could not promise. 

Jack cleared his throat. “Will do,” he said then, and she did not believe him even a little, but there was nothing else she could say, so she let him go. 

She strained her neck to check on Esme and, when she was content her daughter was still sound asleep, she scrolled through her cell contact log until she came to ‘M.’ 

Molly answered on the second ring. “Crawford has you calling now, too?” was her greeting, and Alana winced. She hadn’t expected Molly would still have her number; she’d hoped the minute and a half of anonymity before she had to greet the other woman would give her time to decide what to say. 

“I hate to bother you, Molly,” she began. “I’m sure you’ve probably heard by now --” 

“Lecter escaped, damn right I heard,” Molly interrupted. “Is he after me? After Walter? Is that why Crawford had the police at my door at midnight?” 

So Jack had sent Molly protection, too. Alana felt a rush of relief, tending to a concern she did not know she had until that moment. More than that, she found herself impressed with Jack. 

“No, no -- he’s isn’t after either of you. Well, we have no reason to think he is.” No reason she was aware of, although she was out of the loop to say the least, but she left this part out. “Jack’s just being careful.” 

“That would be a first, wouldn’t it?” Molly was quick, obviously still full of resentment and overflowing with it when it came to Jack, and Alana couldn’t say she really blamed her. 

“I’m just wondering if you’ve seen Will lately,” Alana said, hoping to re-direct the conversation. “We haven’t been able to get in touch with him and we thought maybe you might have some idea where he is.” 

“You think Hannibal’s gone after him, then.” Molly’s anger did not vanish, but it seemed to shift, to give way to worry. “He wants to hurt him?” There was a pause. “ _Kill_ him?” 

“I don’t know what to think,” Alana admitted honestly, because she did not think Molly deserved to be lied to -- by anyone, least of all her. “When was the last time you spoke to Will?” 

“He came by to see Walter on his birthday, took him fishing and said he’d be in touch sooner this time.” Alana imagined Molly was rolling her eyes on the other end of the line. “He lied.” 

“When was this?” 

“May.” Six months ago. 

“And you haven’t heard anything since then?” Alana rubbed her forehead: six months was a long time. “Walter hasn’t? No letters?” Will used to write to Walter, when he was recovering in hospital after Dolarhyde’s attack. Alana wasn’t sure that he’d ever sent them, or, if he had, that Molly had ever given them to the boy. 

“Nothing.” Molly spoke again, after a moment -- quieter, maybe so her son wouldn’t overhear, “You and Crawford, can you promise me something?” 

Even as Alana hummed her agreement, she was shaking her head. If Margot could hear this conversation, she’d be mouthing, _Don’t make promises you can’t keep --_ and she’d be right. 

“Promise me that if he’s out there,” Molly said, “and if he wants to be found, you’ll find him before Lecter does.” 

There was room for loopholes with a promise like that, but Alana was too moved by the genuine remorse in Molly’s tone to care. Alana supposed Molly had fallen out of love with Will Graham, but had not fallen hard enough to shatter all the love she’d had for him from before. Instead, Molly had to carry it with her, to live with it, to build this new part of her life around it. 

“I’ll do whatever I can,” Alana said, earnestly, ignoring the regret knotting inside her. “I’ll try, Molly. I promise you that we’ll try.” 

An hour later, she relayed both conversations to Margot, while Esme snuck Applesauce pieces of her pancakes when she thought they weren’t looking. 

“I wondered how long it would take before Crawford would win you over.” Margot wasn’t annoyed or smug -- just curious, cupping her mug of coffee in her hands as she shrugged. “He’s smart, you have to give him that. Pulling strings with Chicago P.D. to have us _‘protected_ ,’ then having you talk to Molly, knowing she’d get to you.” 

“I don’t think he did it on purpose,” Alana said, diplomatically, although, on second thought, she had to admit Margot had a point. 

“Yeah, right.” Margot rolled her eyes. “Molly thought _she_ had it tough with Will -- Jack doesn’t even need to _ask_ you and you come running.” 

“It’s not like that.” When she heard Applesauce whining, begging for more, she turned to a sympathetic Esme with a firm look. “Enough. You’ll make her sick. If you don’t want any more then just leave it.” 

Esme sighed, stretching her little hand out to stroke Applesauce’s ears apologetically. 

“We’re going to be in Baltimore anyway,” Alana reasoned, taking her own plate to the sink. “I’m just thinking of going out a few days earlier. That’s all.” 

Margot joined her at the sink, leaning against the kitchen counter and nodding towards their daughter. “We could all go out. Give Esme some extra time with Adam’s two.” 

Thanksgiving was a week away, and it had been agreed months ago that this year, Alana’s brother Adam would host. He hadn’t married, still had no interest in dating, but not long after both his siblings left Baltimore he began the adoption process. Now, he was a wonderful father to two well-adjusted and happy little boys: seven-year-old Cecil and four-year-old Thomas. 

Only in the last year or so, as Esme had struggled with shyness around other children at the preschool she attended three days a week, had Alana really come to mourn the distance between her family and Adam’s. She’d grown up incredibly close to her two brothers, and as she and Margot had no plans to have any more children, it was important to her that they facilitated a close bond between Esme and her cousins, regardless of the miles between them. 

While she understood it, Margot did not necessarily share Alana’s philosophy -- she was convinced Esme was just fine, that it was better for her to make friends of her own than to be stuck with her cousins simply because of familial obligations. It was for this reason, and the fact that Margot had never exactly longed for more time in the company of Alana’s younger brother, Alana found her suggestion odd and uncharacteristic. 

She ran the tap of warm water and narrowed her eyes. “And what would you do?”

“I’d find something,” was Margot’s even reply, and Alana knew exactly what that meant. 

Exasperated already, she said, “You’d visit your brother, you mean.” 

“Well, Thanksgiving is a time for family,” Margot said flippantly and with a smirk. 

Alana’s frown only deepened. “ _Why_?” She did not understand what amused Margot so much about the prospect of seeing Mason again, after all these years. “What good could possibly come from going back there? From going back to _him_?” 

“Self-satisfaction.” Margot leaned across her to shut the tap off before the sink basin could overfill under Alana’s distraction. “I’m curious. And I can’t say I wouldn’t enjoy having the opportunity to gloat.” 

“It sounds like a waste of time to me,” Alana muttered, turning her attention to washing up, or at least pretending that was where her attention was placed. “Not to mention that it’s wildly irresponsible and borderline dangerous.” 

“Whereas regrouping with Jack Crawford to conspire against Hannibal Lecter has notoriously yielded successful results,” Margot quipped, a drying cloth in her hands. Alana held a wet mug out to her with a glare that was only half-hearted. 

“All done,” Esme declared, her fork chiming against her plate as she dropped it there happily: all toddler triumphance. “Can I play with the dogs?” 

Will’s dogs, who had been staying with them since Alana had signed them out of the kennel Molly put them in when she left Will. He was supposed to come to Chicago and get them, but he never did. The last time Alana spoke to him, he told her he thought it was better that they were with her. He told her that that way he knew they would always be taken care of, and it was a compliment of the highest degree that he still trusted her so implicitly, but it had broken Alana’s heart, all the same. 

“Go on. We’ll go for a walk when I’m finished here,” Alana told Esme, who slipped from her chair and made a beeline for the door, twin braids flying behind her as she sped out of the kitchen with Applesauce at her heels.

When they were alone, they washed and dried the dishes in silence for only a moment before Margot gave into whatever she was thinking. “You don’t trust me,” she said, and Alana shook her head without even needing to consider the comment. 

“It’s not you I don’t trust. You know that.” She looked out the window at Esme, who’d struck up a conversation with one of the police officers as Applesauce and Trixie chased protective circles around her, Winston watching carefully from the porch. Whatever the officer said made Esme giggle. “I just hate the hold that the place has on you,” Alana admitted, her hands stilling in the soapy water. 

“ _I_ hate the hold all the crap with Crawford, and Hannibal, and Will has on _you_ ,” Margot returned. Alana shut her eyes for a second and wondered how she hadn’t seen that coming. Margot’s hand on her arm made her open them again, to her wife’s honest eyes. “My life is different now. Everything I want is _here_. It isn’t possible for me to get lost in it just by going back.” Margot raised an eyebrow in question, but she spoke softly, “How about you?” 

Margot was the same person she had been six years ago, of that Alana had no doubt -- but she was happier, and she had a healthier way of dealing with things. She was making good money doing what she loved, successfully running her own stables; she was secure in her relationships. Not only with Alana and their daughter, but with the friends she had made here, through the horses and the parent-child groups she’d initially complained about having to bring Esme to while Alana worked in the city. She had a support network of people with common interests who saw her the way Alana always had; she had a family whom she adored and who adored her, one that would not be complete without her in it; she had a business she’d built up from the ground that was all her own. 

There was a part of Alana -- a selfish part, perhaps -- that couldn’t help but wonder what it was that Muskrat Farm had, after all this time, on the life they’d made together. 

She could believe that Margot was going back to make a point to Mason. She’d proved him wrong when he’d said she couldn’t live without him, when he’d said no one would ever love her as much as he did. Margot had won, but she’d never had the chance to prove this to him, and Alana supposed that until she did, she would never really have closure on that chapter of her life; until she did, Margot might always feel as if they were still running. 

As Margot had been quick to point out, Alana was hardly one to judge. There was comfort to be found, maybe, at the prospect of them facing their pasts at the same time -- together, the same way they had stumbled through their respective wreckages in the beginning. Perhaps, Alana thought, this might be the final ending: the last time they would go back to it all. 

“I won’t get lost in any of it either,” Alana said, eyes flicking to the window again, to Esme, collapsing happily onto the damp grass while the dogs clambered around her, sniffing her hair, licking her palms. “I just want to check in on Jack -- and Will, if we can find him. I’m not conspiring against Hannibal. I have too much to lose by doing that.” 

When Margot pressed a kiss to the side of Alana’s forehead, she leaned into it. “So do I,” Margot said against her ear. Drawing back, she folded the drying cloth over twice. “Call Adam. I was going to leave Maxine to look after things here, anyway. Surely Kristopher can’t run it into the ground with another few days in charge.” 

There was no danger of that. Maxine was a retired veterinary physician, the closest thing they had to a neighbour all the way out here and nothing short of a Godsend. She usually came by once a week to see the horses and repeat her ever-open offer to babysit. Each time without fail she would insist she couldn’t stay for dinner when they all knew she would do exactly that. 

Kristopher was the stable-boy, for lack of a better title. He had taken a job helping Margot the summer before his senior year in High School. Before long, the prospect of college had been abandoned in favour of continuing to work there. His unique bond with the horses and his place on the autistic spectrum meant he was easily distracted from the fact that the ranch was ultimately a business -- that there were riding lessons booked, and trails in place, and barn tours. On the occasions they had left him to his own devices, however, he had been meticulous and brilliant in a way that Alana knew filled Margot was silent pride. Alana had no concerns or reservations about leaving him to handle things and she knew that, aside from generally being a control freak when it came to business, neither did Margot. 

It would be a quiet week, anyway. Most of Margot’s regular lessons had already been cancelled, with parents taking their children out of town to visit family during the school break. Thanksgiving holidays also meant Alana would miss only a few days of work herself, and she could arrange to have someone at the University cover those classes that she would be missing. 

When she came back from her walk with Esme, the dogs, and a pleasant officer from Chicago P.D. who insisted on accompanying them -- “ _just in case” --_ she called her younger brother. Adam sounded elated at the prospect of having them stay for longer and not at all concerned about the inconvenience this would cause (or, Alana thought quietly, the possible danger if one of them did become tangled too much with Mason or Hannibal.) She waited until the evening, when Margot took Esme out to the stables to feed the horses, before calling Jack. 

“You sound like crap,” she said, honestly. 

“I _feel_ like crap.” There was a pause. “Did you talk to Molly?” 

“They haven’t seen or heard from Will since May.” The thought that had taken root when she’d recalled her last conversation with Will about the dogs pulsed in her mind until she put it into words: “If he thought everyone was better off without him, you don’t think he would --” 

“-- I don’t know.” The curt way Jack interrupted her told Alana he’d already considered the thoughts that now plagued her. “I don’t know what he would or wouldn’t do. I stopped guessing years ago. You said yourself he’s unpredictable.” 

“I don’t think he’s unpredictable enough to run off with Hannibal, after everything, Jack.” This was met with silence. “Do _you_?” 

“I think that whatever we think he might or might not do, he’s going to prove us wrong anyway,” Jack decided. “That’s how it usually is.” 

“Listen,” she said, deciding this was a discussion that wasn’t going to go anywhere, particularly over the phone. “I’m spending Thanksgiving in Baltimore with my brother. We’re going to fly out early -- tomorrow night, maybe, if we can get a flight. I can come to Virginia if you want.” Alana knew she would regret the offer: she knew before she even voiced it, but she did so nonetheless. She seemed to lose herself when it came to Jack, and Will, and Hannibal; lose herself to the woman she used to be. “I can come to you, Jack.” 

He did not sound surprised by her offer, which made her suspect Margot had been right in her negative assumption about him luring her out there, but he was careful to stress his appreciation. She left him with the order to get some sleep, and then she made an excuse about Esme needing her and hung up, still entirely too unsure of what the hell she was getting herself into. 


	3. it wouldn't be this

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all, and happy holidays to those to celebrate. I hope you & yours have a lovely and safe one! 
> 
> Because I am in the festive spirit, have two chapters - no sense making you wait when they're betaed and ready. Give me a week or two with the next one though (I so appreciate your patience!) 
> 
> Thanks again to my fabulous beta Anna, I can't tell even begin to tell you how much of a help she is. And of course, the comments and kudos from the last few chapters was such wonderful encouragement, I so appreciate it!

It was a two-hour flight, and not the first time Esme had been on a plane, but the first time she’d been old enough to really take her surroundings into account, and Alana and Margot were quickly learning that made all the difference.

She did not sleep like most of the other children and a significant number of the adults on board their night flight. Instead, she sat on Margot’s lap and oscillated between colouring by the flashlight on Alana’s phone and asking questions about flying, convinced the pilot and all of his crew were magic. 

When it came time to land, Alana moved across a seat to strap Esme in between them. The pain that the drop in altitude caused in her ears had her sobbing into Margot’s blouse and shrieking even louder when the flight attendant made the mistake of offering her a candy -- the first note in the proceeding chorus of cries from the other children she had woken. Margot watched Alana reason with their daughter in a voice that was as soothing as it was firm and tried not to smile. 

“I told you we should have drugged her,” Margot said, as Esme’s sobs subsided into miserable hiccups and the plane came to a slow, steady stop on the runway. 

“The last thing we needed was for travel pills to make her nauseous,” Alana argued, turning her attention to their daughter. She brushed loose hairs back from Esme’s face, damp and red from crying. “We’re here,” Alana crooned with forced cheer. 

Eventually, she did fall asleep, strapped into her carseat in the back of their rental car. “She doesn’t look too traumatized,” Margot noted, watching her in the rear view mirror, her thumb tucked between her lips and the ears of her toy rabbit slipping through her fingers. Alana made a noise of indignation. 

“Well, _I_ am,” she said, punctuated by a yawn. “We’re driving everywhere until she’s at least seven. Small children do _not_ belong on planes.” 

Margot was about to remind Alana that they still had the flight home on Sunday to look forward to, but then it occurred to her that this could be their last obligatory visit to Adam’s for at least four years and happily decided she would let it go. 

Her attention was quickly stolen by a building they passed that she did not recognize. She strained her neck to look at it while they were stopped at a red light. It was a new dental practice, from what she could gather. She wondered if it was even new at all -- either because she’d forgotten it existed, in this state she once knew like the back of her hand, or because it had been built shortly after she left, six years ago.

“I can’t really believe we’re back,” she said. She felt strange, and she sounded strange even to her own ears, but she chalked this up to tiredness and opened the window to let some air into the car. As the breeze burned the heaviness from her eyes, she knew Alana was sneaking glances at her. 

“For a few days,” Alana said carefully. “Just a few days, and then we go home.” 

Margot had a feeling these ‘few days’ would feel like much longer to her than they would to Alana. She’d grown accustomed to spending the occasional family holiday with Alana’s brothers, and usually she wouldn’t hate every minute, but she couldn’t help but think that it was for good reason these sorts of things usually took place at their home in Chicago.

She didn’t have a problem with Adam. They might not have been close, but he was more like Alana than he wasn’t and she knew he made a point of asking about her when he called his sister on Sunday nights. He was a good man by all accounts -- certainly a good father and brother, but perhaps that was why their relationship was still non-existent after all this time: Margot had always been suspicious of men who seemed too good to be true. 

Andrew, on the other hand, kept in touch by text and communicated with her much more often than he did with Alana. He’d proposed to Natalie on their first anniversary and then spent four years engaged, going from state to state selling art and investing in properties before they eloped during a vacation he had told only Margot he was planning. She still smirked when she thought of Adam and Alana’s reactions. 

When they were all together, things with Andrew were never awkward like they sometimes were with Adam. With Andrew, Margot could have a drink and pick up right where she left off without the need for listless small talk. It was the kind of low maintenance friendship that worked just right for her -- the fact that it pleased and amused Alana was a lucky bonus. 

The familiar roads they took neither eased Margot nor made her uncomfortable: whatever it was she couldn’t place certainly wasn’t nostalgia. She did not need the streets of Baltimore to remind her that things had changed. She had all the proof of that she needed inside the car -- fingers laced with hers on the clutch and soft snores behind her.

When they passed what had once been Hannibal Lecter’s office, she squeezed Alana’s hand, earning a weak smile, but she did not know what to say, so she stayed silent. They had driven past it at least a hundred times before they left while they waited for the courts to put an end to it all, but this time it felt different. The windows were boarded up and the building abandoned, and although she knew it was foolish, Margot couldn’t help but picture Dr. Lecter lurking within, pouring himself a glass of wine in the dark and sitting gracefully in his chair, waiting. 

His picture had, unsurprisingly, been on the front of all the newspapers in the arrivals lounge at the airport. While Alana stared blankly at the headlines, Margot distracted Esme with the offer of juice and tried not to think about all the ways coming back was a mistake. 

As they pulled into Adam’s driveway, Margot’s sigh did not go unnoticed by Alana. 

“You volunteered to come out here early,” Alana reminded her, but she smiled as she turned the keys and shut the engine off. “Look at it this way: free babysitting for a whole week.” 

That did not make Margot feel any better. For her, Esme was the best part of the entire equation. 

Adam’s front door flew open as they got out of the car, and then there was a blonde, pajamaed child hanging off Alana’s waist. Margot met her eyes over the top of the car and raised an eyebrow. She couldn’t be quite sure which of Adam’s boys it was and turned her focus to unbuckling Esme so she would not need to be.

“Hey,” Alana greeted warmly, crouching down to give the boy a proper hug. “Isn’t it past your bedtime?”

Margot lifted Esme into her arms gently, but left the car unlocked, deciding Adam could get their bags out of the trunk. Esme’s head rolled against her shoulder, and then the little girl’s arms were coming up around her neck, hanging there loosely as she buried her face in Margot’s neck. Her eyelids fluttered, and she mumbled, “ _Mama_ ,” sleepily under her breath, but did not stir otherwise as Margot walked around the car to Alana. 

Alana, who by now had the other boy wrapped around her too, was laughing as Adam appeared in the doorway. His eyes lit up when they fell on his sister. Margot rocked Esme against her and made the conscious effort not to frown. She’d always preferred goodbyes to greetings -- they tended to take less time.

“They couldn’t wait until tomorrow to see you,” Adam explained, pulling his sister into a hug in spite of the two children between them. “We’re really glad you decided to come early.” 

Margot knew Alana had told Adam of her intentions while in Baltimore, but she supposed he was choosing to forget that for now. She could almost relate. 

When he released his sister, his gaze shifted to Margot and Esme. He took a step forward, reaching out to rest his hand on Esme’s hair, and he did not hug Margot but for one horrible moment she thought he might try. Perhaps sensing her horror, he settled for a smile instead. 

“She’s more beautiful every time I see her,” he said fondly, of Esme, and it was directed at his sister, of course, and not at her. “It’s crazy how quickly they grow, isn’t it?”

“Shocking,” Margot deadpanned, while the boys blinked up at her, and to a lesser extent, Esme, as if they had just landed in their driveway by way of spaceship; as if they had expected only Alana. 

Eager to distract from Margot’s sarcasm, Alana pretended to make a move for the trunk. Adam quickly took the hint and shooed them all inside. 

The older boy insisted on showing Alana his pet goldfish, slipping his hand through hers and dragging her down the hall, leaving Margot with the younger one. 

“There’s three boys and three girls now,” he said, with a gap-toothed smile. “That makes six.” He held up five fingers happily, adding an extra one a second too late. 

Margot nodded with a forced and wholly disinterested smile, and made a mental note to tell Alana that their daughter was already intellectually superior to Adam’s children. 

“I should have known you’d be one of _those_ mothers,” Alana joked when she did, a little while later, as they threw back the duvet of the bed in Adam’s guest bedroom. 

“What does that mean?” Margot asked, slipping her bra out from under her blouse and tossing it to the ground as she kneeled on the bed to untie her hair. “What kind of mother?” 

“The kind who is convinced their child is the smartest, the most polite, the most beautiful...” 

Margot paused from unbuttoning her blouse to raise an eyebrow. “Is she _not_?” 

Alana smiled and shifted closer, batting Margot’s hands out of the way so she could finish undressing her herself. “To us -- yes, of course, _always_. To the rest of the world?” She bit her lip, as if she were genuinely considering the prospect. “Maybe not.” 

“Well, the rest of the world are _wrong_ ,” was Margot’s reply. Alana’s fingers brushed with her skin and lingered for a moment longer than necessary as she slipped her blouse from her shoulders. 

“What I’m saying is that we don’t want to put her so high on a pedestal that she’s afraid to fall.” Alana frowned, and her fingers dropped, and Margot knew the conversation had changed direction. “There’s a lot of pressure that comes with being the best.” 

“You’re thinking about Will Graham.” A mood-killer if ever there was one. Margot sat back, clothes still half-on, and waited for Alana to talk herself out of whatever they’d inadvertently delved into. 

“If he’s --” Alana broke off to shake her head. “If something’s happened to him, I don’t know what it would do to Jack. It would break Molly’s heart, I think. Even now.” 

“It won’t be on you,” Margot reminded her, a new kind of exasperated as she stood up and took the rest of her clothes off. “He made his choices a long time ago.” 

“I know. I know that,” Alana said, and yet her tone implied she understood but did not necessarily believe that Will was long beyond reach. “I know Jack’s been wrapped up with the Buffalo Bill case and I just hope that within all of that, he didn’t lose sight of what Hannibal’s capable of.” 

Margot sometimes questioned if any of them really knew what Hannibal was capable of or if they’d just been guessing aimlessly all along; if it was possible that they had not yet seen the worst he could do. He seemed to have a way of surprising them when they were least expecting it -- of everything, Margot thought that maybe it was this he thrived off the most. 

Once, that had amused her -- she’d even admired it, for a short period of time. Now, she looked at the worry etched on Alana’s face, and she thought of the faded scar across her abdomen, and she wondered why no one had put a bullet in him a long time ago. 

“You don’t think Jack Crawford had Will involved in profiling Buffalo Bill, do you?” They hadn’t followed the case -- or at least, Margot hadn’t, and if Alana had, then she hadn’t mentioned it to her -- but it had been difficult to avoid the heavy speculation from news outlets that Hannibal’s input had been vital in helping Crawford and his agents to close it. Margot had met Jack Crawford only a handful of times, but it had been no secret that he avoided _personally_ visiting Hannibal wherever possible. 

“I don’t think either of them would have told me if he had been involved.” Alana’s smile was sad as she threw her head back against the pillows. “I’ll know more tomorrow.” She turned her head towards Margot, her eyes narrowed. “Tell me you’re not still thinking about going to see Mason.” 

Margot shook her head -- not yet, at least. She would bide her time, the way that he used to bide his; she wanted him to hear, somehow, that she was back, wanted to sicken him with suspense; she wanted to wait a few days, in the hopes of sending the message that he was so low on her list of priorities. Above all else, she wanted Mason to feel like an afterthought. 

And he was, for the most part. She wouldn’t have gone out of her way to visit, but she had time to kill in Baltimore while Alana waited for Jack and Will to disappoint her again. There was a small part of her that had thought after six years, she should no longer think of her brother at all, that he should be nothing but a vague memory itching in the back of her mind; as if the first thirty years of her life were nothing but a long night she’d rather forget. 

When Esme asked -- and she would ask, because she was as curious as Alana and every bit as impossible to lie to -- Margot planned to tell her that her family (or, whatever she was supposed to call them, because now that she had a family of her own, she found such a description for those people laughable) were all dead, and she doubted it would even feel like a lie. Margot knew she’d killed more of Mason by leaving him than she would have been able to with poison or bullet. What she’d killed, with her own bare hands, was their warped relationship. She still had to remind herself sometimes, in an inner voice that sounded a lot like Alana, that it was _better_ this way: because she had been the one to sever their ties, and not death. 

It wasn’t so much that she wanted to see Mason now, as it was she wanted him to see her. She wanted him to have a memory of her, smirking and satisfied and successful, to take with him to his grave when he did eventually bite it. She wanted to look him in the eyes and say, once and for all, that she was never coming back to him. 

She wasn’t convinced Alana would be too impressed by any of this, so she simply shrugged. “I’ll stay here with Esme tomorrow. Adam said he’d be working, didn’t he?” 

Not only would her brother-in-law be gone, but his boys were still in school until Tuesday. She would have to spend time with them all eventually, but before that, she wanted a day with just her daughter, without Adam to make idle conversation with or his kids to steal Esme attention. 

Alana laughed at this. “You could text Andrew. Tell him and Nat to come out early, too, if they can.” 

Margot already had, while Adam built a blanket fort with his boys for them to sleep under, wrapped in duvets and laying on top of pillows, so Esme could have the younger one’s bed. Alana had laughed and even joined in a little, while Margot sat on the edge of the bed, stroking Esme’s hair with one hand, cell phone in the other.

_S.O.S,_ Margot had typed simply, knowing he would know exactly what it was she needed to be saved from. _Adam’s building a fort and I’m losing the will to live._

Andrew’s response had been a laughing emoji and a promise to see what he could do. 


	4. that cross you bear, few may be as heavy

The next morning, Jack picked Alana up on his way to Quantico. She did not ask how he’d got her brother’s address, nor did he explain it before launching into the latest developments in Hannibal’s disappearance. 

His hair was completely grey now and his face was thinner, but it was his eyes that surprised her -- as quick as ever, but framed by heavy shadows and deep lines. She thought that he must be at least sixty by now.

Alana rested her head against the window of the passenger seat and waited. When Jack paused for breath, she looked at him across the car and shook her head. “I’m here because I want to find _Will_ ,” she said. “Not Hannibal.” 

“I think one will lead us to the other,” Jack reasoned tapping his fingers against the wheel, impatient, as the car slowed and stopped for a red light. “Don’t you?” 

“I don’t know, Jack. What are you going to do if it does?” It had taken approximately five and a half minutes for her to begin to question him, and she hated it: this was not how she had wanted it to be, not this time, but she couldn’t allow him to handle this recklessly, either. They both knew better. “It’s not like you’re going to arrest Will for aiding and abetting, is it?” 

“If he aids and abets, then _yes_ ,” Jack said, eyes still fixed ahead, “that’s exactly what I’ll do.” 

Alana had to resist the urge to roll her eyes. “You don’t stand a chance.” She did not say this to be the voice of pessimism having arrived just to discredit Jack, although she was sure this was how it felt to him -- she was being realistic. “If they _are_ together and you try to come between that, you won’t come out of it alive.” 

“What do you want me to do?” It was a rhetorical question, and a cool one at that. “Not look for either of them?” 

Alana was glad he did not want an answer, because she didn’t have one. Instead, she shifted in her seat and asked, “What are the FBI doing?” 

Jack grunted, a noise that told her everything she needed to know. “Aside from what they do for show? They’re turning their heads and hoping he’s Europe’s problem again.” Alana watched his hands tighten on the steering wheel: even after all this time, his faith in the Bureau had not been restored. There was one reason to be hopeful, then. “We just have my team left working on it. I’m hoping having you here will keep them from breaking it up and sending the agents on other assignments.” 

“I think it’s more likely to have the opposite effect.” Once, she’d been as much of a pariah to the FBI as Will. She’d been asked to guest lecture a handful of times in the last six years, but she knew these offers occurred only at the orchestration of Jack. “I’m surprised they’ll have me involved at all. Isn’t Purnell afraid I was driving Hannibal’s getaway car?”

“Purnell’s working at Justice,” Jack told her, with a faint smile at the memory of Purnell’s ridiculous attempts to scapegoat her. “It’s Springfield now. He used to -- no, you wouldn’t remember him. He helped us out with Dolarhyde.” 

“You’ll appreciate it if that doesn’t instill me much confidence,” Alana admitted, and their moment of shared amusement was lost. 

She felt Jack’s eyes on her, but did not turn toward him. “Alana. Listen, about all that --” 

“You didn’t listen to me,” she said, frankly, because too much had happened between the two for them to tiptoe around this. They’d already wasted three years being a touch too angry and ten touches too proud. “You had Will involved when I told you not to, and you used Freddie Lounds to stir up a reaction when I warned you against pushing, and you put them both in danger in the process.” She did turn to him then, but he had already looked away. “Freddie died, and Will would have too if it hadn’t been for Molly.” 

“Dolarhyde going after Will had nothing to do with me,” Jack amended tightly. “You can thank Hannibal for that one.” 

“He wouldn’t have been involved at all if you hadn’t sought him out and dragged him back.” She let out a sigh and shook her head. “I don’t mean that. I know it’s not all on you: they made their own decisions. I just want you tell me you’ve learned from the part you _did_ play.” 

Alana watched the man beside her stiffen. “Meaning?” 

“ _Meaning_ ,” Alana began, “I’d really rather not have to wonder if you had Will come out here and get inside Buffalo Bill’s head too.” 

“Of course not,” he said, and Alana was amazed that Jack Crawford actually had the nerve to sound affronted. “And you heard about that then,” he continued, an edge to his voice Alana couldn’t miss even if she wanted to. “Didn’t think about calling?”

“The papers said you already had somebody helping you. A trainee.” What was she supposed to do -- abandon work, leave her students and walk out on her family every time Jack Crawford became obsessed with finding a new serial killer? That might have been Will, but it wasn’t her. “Anyway. Three’s a crowd -- we felt that before, didn’t we?”

Truthfully, she’d been more than just a little skeptical of Jack’s involvement in another high-profile case, and while she’d been relieved he hadn’t dragged her into it, there had been a small, silly part of her that hadn’t been able to keep from feeling a little left out that he hadn’t even _tried_. 

She shouldn’t have been surprised: a young, impressionable trainee who looked at Jack and saw the awe-inspiring Guru of the BSU was much more likely to agree with him, to tell him what he wanted to hear, to follow him into the dark places he couldn’t keep from going than she was. It was more preferable for him to work with someone who would do whatever he asked, who would flatter him when he started to question himself than it was to listen to Alana advocate tirelessly for caution, to have to handle her concern, to have her criticise. 

“The three of us managed to put Hannibal behind bars in the first place,” Jack reminded her -- as if there were any chance she might have forgotten. He spoke of it as if it were the incident that had defined them when in fact it was all everything before and after that Alana thought made them who they were now. 

“But no one could keep him there,” was her dry response. “From what I gather, he had himself moved somewhere he knew he would have opportunity, and then he took it. You know as well as I do the only reason we got him in Italy is because he decided to change the rules of whatever game he was playing back then. Hannibal had never lost control, not really, and we were fools to ever believe he had.” She turned back to the window and said frankly, “He’s just controlled things from a cell for a while.” 

She thought that maybe, of everything she could say that Jack would ignore, that was perhaps the most difficult for him to hear: that they had never really won at all, that they probably never would. 

They barely spoke again until they reached Quantico. Jack flashed his credentials to a man at the gate who eyed Alana with suspicion. Once parked, Alana turned to Jack. 

“I don’t want to mislead you. I’m not here to help you find Hannibal. I’m here because Will might still need us on some level.” She fixed him with a very serious look. “Hannibal sent Dolarhyde after Will’s family -- I won’t take that risk with mine.” 

“What happened with Dolarhyde was an oversight on my part and an error in judgement on Will’s. I understand why you’re worried, but you won’t have to risk a thing.” Jack frowned deeply, and there was something that might have been hurt in his eyes. “Alana, you know I’d never ask you to.” 

It made her think about what Margot had said about her decision to get involved with Jack again, even after all this time: _he doesn’t even need to ask._ Maybe Margot had been only half-right: Alana might have been unfalteringly loyal to Jack and to Will, but it did not -- could not, would not, _ever --_ trump the loyalty she had to her family. 

“How are they, anyway?” Jack asked, as they headed toward the academy together. “They don’t mind me stealing you for a few hours?” 

“Me being here isn’t going to end in divorce, if that’s what you’re asking.” She was thinking of Molly, of her hurt through the phone line as she asked Alana to find the man none of them could really let go of. She wondered about the boy, Walter, who had loved and lost Will too, and she wondered how all of this could possibly make sense to a child when they, as adults, were still only scratching the surface of understanding. 

“It _wasn’t_ ,” Jack said, and as something passed across his face that Alana couldn’t read, she felt guilt begin to resonate inside her. “Molly still blames me for what happened, huh?” 

“Molly blames _Will_ for what happened,” Alana corrected, a little more fairly. As an afterthought, she added honestly, “She just never liked you.” 

Jack gave a huff of a self-deprecating laugh. “That sounds about right.” 

In the elevator, Alana dug out her phone, unlocked the screen, and, when it lit up to a picture of Esme, handed it to Jack. “She loves horses, and dogs, and anything that makes a mess. You can bet she keeps us on our toes. And it turns out you don’t know what confrontation is until you have to talk a three-year-old out of having ice-cream for breakfast.” 

Jack’s smile was sincere, but maybe just a little sad. Alana wondered if he ever wished he and Bella had had children. She wondered if it would have been a comfort for him after he’d lost her or if it would have only made it all the more difficult. “She’s beautiful, Alana,” he said gently meeting her eyes as he handed the phone back to her. “I’m glad it worked out for you.” 

The last time they’d stood together like this, she’d been fresh off a plane screening calls from a fertility clinic in Chicago and hoping the combination of guest lecturing and The Tooth Fairy case would distract her. Three failed rounds of IVF using donor sperm had been taking it’s toll on her, emotionally, and although Margot was saying all of the right things, she knew it wasn’t any easier for her. She remembered thinking that the space would do them good, even if it was only a few days, and on the next thought she’d worried that if they needed to put seven hundred miles between each other to deal with their disappointment, they weren’t ready for a child at all. 

They’d fallen into the mindset of so many couples who embarked on a similar process: that science would render it all so easily and certainly, and that the only way it would drain them was financially. 

In hindsight, Alana wondered if her mind hadn’t been back in Chicago, if she hadn’t been blaming herself for their failure to conceive -- because who else could she blame when they’d used two different sperm donors? -- then she might have been more useful to Jack, or maybe she might have been more proactive in challenging him, challenging Will when he made the decision to go to Hannibal for insight. Instead, she had left them, left Virginia, in the middle of the case with the promise to come back once she had someone to cover her classes in Chicago. Once home, she had another fertilised egg implanted, and when she received the news that it had taken, she took it as the only sign she would ever need that it was time to move on and called Jack to tell him she wouldn’t be helping out after all.

Jack had sent a card and a gift when Esme was born, but he hadn’t visited. Alana had scolded herself for being surprised -- she recalled thinking, bitterly, that he only cared about her and Will when they were profiling for him, when they were mentally tangled up with him and Hannibal, when they were as miserable as he seemed determined to make himself. Now, she looked at the regret on his face and wondered if, just maybe, the reason he hadn’t come to see her was because he hadn’t thought he’d be welcome. 

“She was worth waiting for,” Alana said slipping the phone back into her purse. “I got lucky.”

“I hope you brought some of that luck with you,” Jack said, as they stepped out of the elevator on the third floor. “Approximately two hundred and three unconfirmed sightings of Hannibal in the last forty-eight hours, and that was just when I left to pick you up.” 

“Left?” It wasn’t even nine-thirty yet. “As in, you stayed _here_ last night?” 

“I was just getting to the fact that over _half_ of those supposed sightings claim Hannibal is accompanied by a man matching Will’s description,” Jack said, by way of explanation. He led her through a set of double doors she did not remember and down a busy corridor that she was sure had been remodeled to his (new, at least to her) office. 

“You’ve downsized,” she said looking around. It was chaotic, cluttered, in a way that Jack had never been before. She wondered what else about him had changed. 

“Not by choice.” He picked up a file from his desk and flicked through it. 

“It’s --” Jack looked up at her with a cocked eyebrow before Alana could finish. 

“-- if you say _‘cozy_ ,’ so help me, Alana,” he said, and she smiled. 

“It’s nice, Jack.” She nodded toward the three shirts and assortment of mismatched socks strewn across the small sofa tucked in the far corner. “It’s certainly homely.” 

Jack cleared his throat obviously taking her hint. “I don’t have much cause for going home these days.” 

So it wasn’t just the news of Hannibal’s escape -- but then, she’d already known that. It had been Buffalo Bill and it had been The Tooth Fairy and every single one that came in between that she had not heard of. It had been the Chesapeake Ripper and The Minnesota Shrike and their copycats. It hadn’t stopped, not ever, not for Jack. 

“You haven’t spoken to the media yet? About Hannibal’s escape?” 

Jack shook his head. “Springfield has. Told them we have reason to believe he’s headed straight back to Europe.” 

Alana turned to the glass wall that made up the entire left side of Jack’s office. It overlooked a bullpen, where agents years younger than her rubbed their eyes and yawned flipping through files like the one Jack had. “ _Do_ we have reason to believe he’s going to Europe?” she asked. 

Jack tossed the file back onto his desk. “I think we know enough to know we can’t assume to know anything about what he’ll do next.” 

Alana folded her arms, but didn’t argue. “And Will?”

“I have an APB out on the last car registered on his name. You don’t have an idea where he’d be, I take it?” 

“The last time we spoke, I think he was still in Florida.” Alana leaned against Jack’s desk. “He was upset, he’d been drinking. I’ve talked to him for… about an hour. We didn’t talk about Hannibal at all -- just him and how he was feeling. He told me not to worry. He told me he’d be okay.” 

She couldn’t remember all of their last conversation, but she’d spent the last few days trying. She did remember that she’d come away from the call feeling as if they’d made some sort of progress because Hannibal did not dominate their conversation. He’d laughed with her when she talked about Esme, and Margot, and the dogs -- and his laughter might have been broken and mournful, but it had been enough to remind her that he wasn’t all gone, not yet. 

She’d thought that no matter how many times Will hit rock bottom, he would still be the only one who could claw his way back out. When he’d drifted out of touch again, that was just Will, and that was just how Will dealt with the things that would be too much for most people to take. Now, she wished she’d kept him on the phone for longer. She wished she pushed to have him come out to Chicago and stay with them. She wished that either of these things, or anything else she might have done, could have made a difference. 

“And Hannibal?” Jack watched her carefully, as if she were the bridge between them all that he was both hesitant and determined to cross. “When did you last hear from him?” 

“It’s been years. He stopped writing to me less than a year after Dolarhyde,” she explained with a shrug. “I suppose he knew I wouldn’t be visiting again.” 

“How about Margot? Did she hear anything lately?” Jack didn’t seem convinced Alana could have this little to contribute or perhaps he still saw Margot in the suspicious shadow of her brother. “I know he used to write to her.” 

Alana wanted to ask _how_ he knew -- if Hannibal had told him or if the person at the Bureau who passed on the letters had. Instead, she shook her head. “No. He sent her a few letters in the beginning -- mostly to mock her brother and to praise her for leaving, I think.” 

Jack tilted his head to the side, and Alana realized this was not a discussion at all: it was a interrogation. “You _think_?” Jack asked, dubiously. “You didn’t read them?” 

Alana blinked at him, irritated at the implication, the conversation, the entire situation. “Did you ever read Bella’s mail?” she challenged. 

“Bella didn’t get letters from serial killers,” Jack replied bluntly. 

“I didn’t _need_ to read them,” Alana said, crossing her arms. She lifted her head. “There wasn’t anything enough for me to be concerned about.” 

“Would she have told you?” Jack’s tone had defensiveness stirring inside of Alana like the first flames of fire. “If there were more, if there had been some recently, would she have told you?”

“Of _course_.”

“Good.” Jack held her eyes for just a second longer before sitting down in his chair and turning his attention to the other files on his desk. “This isn’t personal, Alana,” he said, and she was supposed to believe it. 

She didn’t care if he thought she was being over-sensitive: Alana could not help but take offense to someone who had not seen her and Margot together since their wedding day, four a half years ago, before questioning their relationship.

“How about you?” she asked. He did not look up at her. “I read the papers, Jack. If Will didn’t have a hand in catching Buffalo Bill, then Hannibal did. The information Chilton thought he had was crap, so he must have told _you_ the truth.” 

“It wasn’t me who went to see him,” Jack said delicately, but Alana knew instantly what he meant. “He didn’t tell _me_ a damn thing.” 

“You sent your trainee?” Of course, because the news had reported that it was the brave and bright trainee who found Buffalo Bill, and not Jack. 

“Starling’s good, Alana,” he said, much in the same way he had once looked her in the eyes and promised, ‘ _I’ll cover Will, he won’t get too close.’_ In the next breath, as if he could hear her thoughts, he tried to reassure her, “she’s not like Will.” 

“No. _She_ hasn’t been framed for murder; no one’s gutted her and left her to die, a killer hasn’t been sent after her family and left her disfigured -- yet.” Alana did not mean to be so sharp, so harsh, but fighting with Jack always had a way of bringing out the worst in her. He infuriated her in a way that no one before, and no one since, had ever been able to. “How many times did you send her to Hannibal?” 

“Not many.” It was obvious Jack was convinced he had done the right thing -- and maybe he had, for his case, for the victim who was saved, but Alana sincerely doubted it felt that way to the trainee who had to live with the knowledge that her back-and-forth with Hannibal had inadvertently led to his escape. “A handful. She went a few times of her own accord.” 

_Jesus Christ._ Alana could feel her face beginning to burn, blood rushing angrily to her cheeks. “You let her go? Alone?” She wasn’t sure if she should laugh at how ridiculous it all was or cry out in exasperation about how Jack never seemed to learn. “ _Fuck_ , Jack.” 

Jack turned away from her, and the fact he’d quickly abandoned eye contact did not help his case. She might have been able to be sympathetic if he were an idiot, but Jack was smart and experienced; he had known exactly what he was doing when he made the decision to send Hannibal a new agent to toy with, and he should have known better. “Fuck nothing, Alana. It worked, didn’t it? She got Buffalo Bill.” 

Alana tapped her foot against the linoleum floor, agitated. “And what did Hannibal get out of it?” 

“There was a bargain,” Jack admitted, as if that were what she meant at _all_. “More books. A window. A private cell.” 

“No,” Alana corrected slowly. She shook her head, more for herself -- out of genuine disbelief that they were actually _having_ this conversation -- than for Jack. “That’s what you _gave_ to him. What did he _take_?” 

Jack stilled, the imposition falling uncomfortably between them, but he still tried to ignore it. “Clarice can level with him in a way that we can’t.” 

“So could Will. That hadn’t exactly worked in our favour before, had it?” Alana didn’t give Jack the opportunity to make another excuse or to formulate another explanation before she spoke again. “I want to see her.” 

He had been expecting this, obviously. Jack cleared his throat. “Now’s not a great time. She’s tough, and she doesn’t show it, but I think she’s still a little shaken up.” 

“I’m not surprised.” He’d kept suspiciously quiet about Clarice’s involvement, so it did not surprise her that Jack was still attempting to conceal it -- now, Alana knew why. “I want to see her,” she repeated, “ _Now._ ”

There must have been something in her voice, or something in her eyes when he did finally turn to look at her, that had Jack conceding defeat. He motioned for her to sit down -- which she purposely did not do -- and then grunted something about going to get Starling before disappearing out the door and down the hallway toward the bullpen. 

Alana watched through the windowed walls as his presence had the agents there visibly shambling, sitting up straighter in their chairs and shaking themselves awake. Angry as she was, Alana could not deny that Jack Crawford had a way of evoking a high level of respect. Her second thought, as he walked away from the bullpen with a young, dark-haired woman in tow, was that it might not have been respect as much as it was intimidation. 

He held the door for Clarice. She was not a surprise to Alana because she’d seen her on the news and in the papers, but perhaps Alana was a surprise to her. She held her hand out and forced a smile Alana could not find it in herself to yet return. “Doctor Bloom. It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’ve heard great things.” 

Alana took her hand. It felt rough against her palm. There were hardened callouses on her thumb from pulling a gun trigger. “Likewise,” she said, eyes flicking to Jack for just a moment as he shut the door behind himself. “You’ve been invaluable to Agent Crawford of late, from what I’ve heard.” 

Clarice was proud enough to hold Alana’s stare, but humble enough to shake her head at this. “I really wouldn’t say invaluable -- and it got me out of a classroom.” A joke, or an attempt at one, before she remembered Alana was a teacher and almost cringed at herself. “What I mean is--” 

Alana did smile then, and it wasn’t even all that fake because she could remember being twenty-something and clumsy with words. “It’s fine. You still managed to graduate on time, even amongst all the chaos, didn’t you?” She waited for Clarice to nod before continuing. “You’ve had quite a year. Agent Crawford and the Bureau were lucky that you agreed to help out.” 

She felt Jack’s eyes on her, and, coupled with Clarice’s uncomfortable smile, she wondered if there’d been much of a discussion about that, much of a choice. 

“Didn’t you have to check in with Springfield, Jack?” She knew she was pushing it, and Jack’s glare over Clarice’s head made it very clear that he knew she was, too. 

“It can wait until later. If it’s all the same to you, Dr. Bloom, I’d like to stay.” Jack passed her to get to his desk where he sat down to watch them both a little more measuredly. 

Alana made the decision to ignore him and turned her attention solely to Clarice. If he wouldn’t leave, then she would have just pretended he had. “It’s my understanding that, prior to his recent escape, you’d met with Dr. Lecter quite a few times?” 

Clarice nodded, but not before she looked briefly at Jack. “That’s correct. He helped to shed some light on the Buffalo Bill killings.” 

“And how was he with you?” Alana asked, tone serious enough to have Clarice swallowing hard. “He can be difficult. He can be tricky. He enjoys playing with people,” she suggested gently to ease the way for whatever Clarice might put forward. 

“He was like that some of the time,” Clarice agreed evenly, carefully. 

“And the rest of the time?” Alana tilted her head. 

“He was helpful.” Clarice did not elaborate. Alana looked over her shoulder, at Jack, who had his hands clasped in front of him and was steadily staring her out. 

“I see,” Alana said, unsure of what should come next. “And he has never made any kind of threat toward you? Anything that made you feel uneasy or uncomfortable?” 

“No.” Clarice answered quickly, but firmly. “He was polite, and he was charming. I didn’t feel like I was in any danger.” Clarice’s eyes fell on Jack for just a moment before she looked back to Alana. “I still don’t.” 

“And the last time you spoke to him?” For just a second, Clarice’s calmness seemed to falter. It was a blink-and-miss-it observation, a sudden squaring of her jaw as something flickered in her eye, but Alana knew better than to brush it off. “When was that exactly?” she asked. 

“A few days after we got Buffalo Bill. I visited him to ensure he would receive what we had promised him in exchange for his help. I wanted to thank him.” 

“But nothing since then?” 

Clarice shook her head. “I am committed to finding him.” Alana supposed that was more for Jack than for her. 

“I don’t think anyone has any right to question your commitment,” she observed honestly. “As I said, a lot of people should be very grateful to you for all you’ve done for Bureau this early in your career.” 

Clarice dug her hands into her trousers pockets but did not respond. She wasn’t used to the attention, the compliments. Perhaps it even made her uncomfortable: because she was naturally humble or because she really did not deserve it? 

“Are we done here? Agent Starling has work to do,” Jack probed. Alana shot him a dark look, but she stepped away from the desk and turned back to Clarice with a final smile. 

“I’m glad I finally got to meet you,” Alana said kindly. She rested her hand on Clarice’s elbow as she walked her to the door of Jack’s office: then, she gave her arm a gentle squeeze. “Take care, Agent Starling. I hope we’ll get a chance to speak again soon.” _Alone,_ Alana wanted to add, but didn’t. 

When Clarice disappeared down the hallway, Alana shut the door and counted back from ten. 

“I told you, Alana,” Jack said, and she hadn’t even made it to seven but she was shaking her head. “She’s a smart one. She knows what she’s doing.” 

“She knows how to lie,” Alana corrected, infuriation bubbling inside her as she began to pace in front of Jack’s desk and mentally resolved not to yell. “She’s heard from him. A letter or a phone call or another fucking ad in the paper, Jack, but you can bet your life he’s made contact with her since he’d escaped -- in fact, that might be exactly what you’re doing.” 

“Oh, come off it. He wasn’t working on her, and if he was, it didn’t work.” Jack looked up at her and shook his head. “And if he has made contact with her, then he couldn’t have said anything useful. She wouldn’t withhold information if she had it.” 

“Well, if _you’re_ convinced, with the _remarkable_ judge of character you’ve shown in the past --”

“-- Hey,” Jack interrupted, voice louder than Alana’s, enough to have her pausing mid-pace. “I wasn’t the only one who judged wrong back then. We’re in the same boat here.” 

“Yeah, well, _I’m_ getting out before you sail too far from shore.” Alana grabbed her purse. Jack sat back in his chair, obviously surprised, but it was more of a disguised relief than genuine disappointment. “Call me when you have any real news -- about _Will_.” If he doesn’t call, she would call _him_ in the morning, she decided. She need some time to remember why the hell she had come here in the first place. 

He let her go without even pretending he wanted her to stay. Downstairs, a woman in the lobby who she did not know told Alana Jack had a car waiting for her outside. Alana wondered if he’d ever even wanted her here in the first place or if he’d just been going through the motions. It occurred to her that after last time, he hadn’t expected her to stay. 

She took the car that was offered because her pride was not as difficult to ignore as the desire to get the fuck away from Jack Crawford before she could say something she’d regret. By the time she got to Baltimore, she had lost the edge of her initial anger, but only when the car pulled into Adam’s driveway and she caught sight of Margot and Esme playing in the snow did she feel herself actually relax.

Esme was wrapped in a scarf that Alana assumed was Adam’s -- much too big for her, looped around her neck at least twice. She had one of the boys hats on, and it slipped down her face covering her eyes as she ran to greet Alana. 

“Mommy!” she squealed giggling carelessly as she wrapped around Alana’s legs and tried to dodge her attempts at adjusting the hat. “We had a snow fight.” 

Margot walked toward her, hands tucked into pockets, shoulders pulled together tightly in a shiver. Her cheeks and nose were red from the cold, but her eyes were bright. Now the hype of Alana’s return had quickly subsided, Esme was all Margot’s again peaking out from behind Alana’s legs with a smile inviting another snowball fight. “You weren’t gone very long,” Margot said eyeing Alana for barely more than a second before Esme’s giggles had her attention again and she faked an attempt to grab her. “I take it things didn’t go well.” 

Alana rolled her eyes. “Don’t. I’ll lose my mind if I have to rehash it again.” She nodded toward the house. “I’ll tell you later.” 

Margot didn’t push. She knew Alana needed time to process things. This was the difference six years had made -- once, before she knew better, she might have thought Alana was shutting her out.

Margot held her gloved hand out to Esme who eyed it skeptically but with keen eyes. “Come on. I want the winner on my team. Us against Mommy,” Margot’s smirk was teasing as she met Alana’s eyes, “since she did show up late.” 

Esme was sold, but she usually was when a suggestion came from Margot -- not that Alana was even remotely jealous. She understood completely. She loved watching Margot and Esme together: twin braids, and matching nail polish, and playful tenderness. She didn’t even care when they were pitted against her. It was at times like this, as the first snowball hit her waist and left her wincing as it crumbled to dampen her jeans, that Alana felt like the luckiest loser in the world. 


End file.
